Ocean surface energy balance allows a constraint on the sensitivity of precipitation to global warming

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 2115 - 9
• Main Authors: Wang, Wei, Chakraborty, T. C., Xiao, Wei, Lee, Xuhui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.04.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 704/106; 704/106/35/823; 704/106/694; 704/106/694/2739; Albedo; Climate change; Climate models; Climate prediction; Energy balance; Global climate; Global warming; Heat storage; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrology; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; multidisciplinary; Ocean surface; Precipitation; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sea ice; Sensitivity; Short wave radiation; Surface energy; Surface properties
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22406-7

Climate models generally predict higher precipitation in a future warmer climate. Whether the precipitation intensification occurred in response to historical warming continues to be a subject of debate. Here, using observations of the ocean surface energy balance as a hydrological constraint, we find that historical warming intensified precipitation at a rate of 0.68 ± 0.51% K −1 , which is slightly higher than the multi-model mean calculation for the historical climate (0.38 ± 1.18% K −1 ). The reduction in ocean surface albedo associated with melting of sea ice is a positive contributor to the precipitation temperature sensitivity. On the other hand, the observed increase in ocean heat storage weakens the historical precipitation. In this surface energy balance framework, the incident shortwave radiation at the ocean surface and the ocean heat storage exert a dominant control on the precipitation temperature sensitivity, explaining 91% of the inter-model spread and the spread across climate scenarios in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. There is some disagreement between climate models about how much precipitation changes under global warming. Here, the authors use the ocean surface energy balance to constrain the sensitivity of precipitation to historical warming and find that it is increasing by 0.68 ± 0.51% per degree warming.